HHS, CCSC establish new national awards program

The US Department of Health and Human Services and the Critical Care Societies Collaborative have established a new national awards program. The National Awards Program to Recognize Achievements in Eliminating Healthcare-Associated Infections will annually recognize teams of critical care professionals and healthcare institutions that achieve excellence and notable, sustained improvements in preventing healthcare-associated infections, specifically infections in critical care.

The awards program intends to motivate the healthcare community to achieve wide-scale reduction and elimination of healthcare-associated infections, and further motivate other clinicians, hospital executives, and facilities to improve clinical practice through utilization of evidence-based guidelines.

"This awards program will not only motivate individuals and institutions to implement better clinical practices aimed at reducing these infections, but will, we hope, draw attention to this increasingly important problem in contemporary healthcare settings," said Dean Schraufnagel, M.D., president of the American Thoracic Society.

For the program's initial phase, awards will emphasize success related to reducing and eliminating central line-associated bloodstream infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia.